You Are The Moon
by Leeson
Summary: This is anything but jovial conversation. Late night conversation on nothing. The Doctor, the Master, the year that wasn't.


**You Are the Moon  
This is anything but jovial conversation. Late night conversation on nothing. The Doctor, the Master, the year that wasn't.**  
**I do not own the characters or the universe depicted.**

They are enemies, really. They've been so for long enough that it's a fact difficult to ignore or forget and it's difficult to remember when they were once friends. Academy days, those abhorrent nicknames and even then, they were both more than a little mad.

Even enemies can talk, though. In the end, it's best not to give away your biggest weakness or tell your opponent your -- frankly, brilliant -- plans, but even enemies can talk.

So that's what they do.

It is anything but jovial conversation, though. There are random remarks of hatred or admiration, and they aren't quite certain where they stand in accordance to one another.

"Lucy, again?" Is all the Doctor can think to ask after the Master comes.

"Not really," is the reply as his once-friend falls into his seat, the chair swivelling each way in a slight manner. The Master is restless, tired of waiting after only nine months. Patience was never his strong suit. "Really didn't think it would take so long. Did I ever spend linear years on a domination plan before? Am I going soft in my old age?" He doesn't let the Doctor answer. "Well, that doesn't really matter, does it? three months more and," he catches himself. "Well, you're aware."

The Doctor shifts on creaking bones. "Yes. Your devious plan."

"Speaking of, are you still hoping for your companion--Miss Jones, was it?--to rescue you. After so long, I think she might be a lost cause." He slouched further into his seat. "Not even the best you've had and you expect her to save the world from me? I'm insulted, Doctor."

"All of my companions have been equally impressive in their own right."

The Master gave the Doctor a pitying look. "She's no Ace though, is she."

"She'll do what needs to be done."

"Oh, so she's only capable of this particular task you've given her? Are these companions anything more than your disciples?" he asks, not knowing how close to reality the comment hits. "Really? Is there one who has had more purpose than worshipping your presence." He rolls his eyes in unveiled disgust. "You call me pompous..."

The Doctor stares at the ceiling, lost in memories as he talks over the other man's last comment. "There was this one..."

Before the Master can manage to respond, he continues on. "Rose. That was her name. We were..." He's become less loquacious in his old age. There's a long silence before he continues, unaware of the quiet. "She was like Ace and Sarah Jane, a bit...bit like your Lucy, actually. Not much. But loyal, and compassionate."

"Human?" wonders the Master before answering himself. "Of course. They always are."

"Not like the others, though. Rose...She was different."

He drags out the emotion as he taunts, "Oh, you loved her. And she left you, didn't she?" His grin, like the cat got the cream, gleams by the light from the observation windows.

"No." He shakes his head, an action that more rolls it on the floor than anything. "I...sent her away."

"I may just need to pay the girl a visit."

The Doctor glances at him through his eyelashes. "You can't. She's gone. Dead," he lies and closes his eyes against the memory when it doesn't feel like a lie. "She was brilliant though. So...brilliant. She absorbed the Heart of the TARDIS!" he exclaims. "Can you believe that? Just a shop girl from London but she tore open the TARDIS and absorbed the Heart of it." His tone returns to reminiscence, cottony and worlds away. "Oh, but she was brilliant. Wiped every single Dalek from existence." He smiles gently, breathing out, "Oh, Rose."

Not willing to admit that he's impressed, the Master asks, "Did your little human love you back?" Continuing, he taunted, "That's so sweet."

"She was so much more," he informs earnestly. "she was Rose...Bad Wolf..."

He doesn't notice the Master start at the epithet.

"And she was...Oh, but that's never mind," he tells, brushing away the subject. "How is Lucy?"

"Lovely, as always," the Master replies. "So, what about this Bad Wolf?" he returns, fishing.

The Doctor is oblivious, though, and only dismisses the subject again. "It's no matter anymore. Rose is gone and Martha is my companion now."

"Yes, but absorbing the Heart of the TARDIS, the vortex itself. Quite the feat."

Looking up at him with a contemplative glint, the Doctor asks as plainly as if he were asking where they'd tossed his pants after the washing, "Are you admitting that you're impressed?"

With a dour frown, the Master sniffs, "Can't have done.

"You sounded impressed," he observed. "It _is_ quite the feat, as you've said."

"I doubt your little shop girl was hardly more impressive than you, though I wouldn't classify that as difficult."

He smiles and, though it's vague, it lights up his lined face. "Oh, but she was, so impressive."

"Bullocks!"

"She was!"

The Master rolls his eyes and corrects, drolly, "I meant, you need to grow some."

"You've quite seen that I have got."

"Get out," replies the Master, any interest in the conversation turning to boredom. "You know what you need? To go and...get pissed and have a shag with a random stranger. A blonde, maybe. Or a ginger! You've always loved the ginger, if I remember that piece you had back when _you_ were blonde." He's become distracted as he natters on about good jaw structure and exactly how wide could that mouth open?

There's a space where the Doctor listens to his tittering on and on before he lets out a dry laugh, an echo of the mania it used to hold, and finishes it with a sigh. "I'm an old man, and your prisoner."

"There's that. I'm mainly talking in theory, of course." He gives his old friend his best Harold Saxon Grin. "Hope I haven't given you the hope you'll be freed."

"Yes, you do." He raises an eyebrow and then answers, "And no, you haven't. Could let Jack go, though."

"Have done."

The Doctor looks at him for barely half-second before scoffing.

"All right, I haven't. Can't have done. What if he were to foil my nefarious scheme with the help of his little mountaineers? I can't have that go on, Doctor. Not at all."

"Afraid of the power of the human mind?"

It's his turn to scoff. "Barely. More disturbed by the human tendency to charge in, blazing. For a plan to achieve true success, one must plan with care and intellect, not in the toilet for ten minute before rushing in."

Raising an eyebrow, the Doctor can't help but taunt, "And what do you know of plans to succeed?"

"More than you."

"Quite," he replies and the sense of the word is lost in his atonal musing.

There's a long silence wherein the Doctor stretches like a cat and the Master looks at his fingernails before the latter stands, leaving the room.

"Master?"

He can't help the hairs that prick up on the back of his neck or the hand that moves into the pocket of his trousers. "Doctor?"

"I fo--"

"Piss off," he spits. "You're a fool."

And silence reigns as the Doctor stares at the low illumination of the room and the footsteps have faded out.


End file.
